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YALE UNIVERSITY PRIZE POEM 

IQ16 



PORTRAITS 



BY 



JOHN CHIPMAN FARRAR 



Yale University Press 
1916 



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PREFATORY NOTE 

This poem received the eighteenth award of the prize 
offered by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook to Yale 
University for the best unpublished verse, the Com- 
mittee of Award consisting of Professors Chauncey B. 
Tinker, of Yale University, Alfred Noyes, of Princeton 
University, and Edwin Mims, of Vanderbilt University. 



PORTRAITS 



A SACRISTAN 

Sometimes on summer noons the silence grows 
Unbearable; but then I sweep and dust 
The images, or polish off the rust 
Blackening the twisted brass. At curfew-time 
I ring the bell, and then, it seems, the chime 
Looks in my heart and knows. 

There are so very many little things 

Each day — perhaps you might not understand 

The joy of reaching out a quiet hand 

To touch the cross ; or once — it was at night — 

Suddenly all the hushed blue church grew white 

With holy angels' wings. 



ONE BORN BLIND 

They tell me there are gleaming stars afar, 
Golden and silver-white — I cannot tell 
Whether they He who speak. Stars may as well 
Be crimson or blue or darting green-tongued flames ; 
To me they are but hollow, far-sung names — 
I know not what they are. 

They tell me how the world and life began : 

Some talk of fire-wrought worlds, some mystics dream 

Of distant heavens with cherubim agleam. 

I care not whether they have seen or know ; 

But this is true — my heart has told me so — 

God was and is a man. 



A NUN 

He died at morning, I was nursing then ; 

The priest had shriven him, and his soul was white ; 

But in the cruel stillness of that night 

m 

His tired eyes opened, and his hand sought mine. 
I took it softly. Pardon me, divine 
Mary, Mother of men. 

Then, first, I noticed his strong face, grown thin, 
The yearning fever of his lips, the eyes 
That longed for comfort. Was I too unwise 
To stoop, and in the unseeing darkness, kiss 
Away his fear of death ? O speak, was this, 
Mary, a fearful sin? 



A HILLSIDE FARMER 

Dawn — and the mist across the silent lane ; 
Each day its little round of petty tasks. 
'Are you not very lonely" some one asks, 
'Here where the old folks stay, and no one new 
Comes in to start a farm ? You should go, too ; 
Valleys grow better grain.' 

'This may seem still and lonely, but for me 
Hill-tops are wider than the open land. 
Maybe you never could quite understand 
How dear it is to me — this loneliness. 
You think the hills are narrowing, I guess ; 
But, oh, how far we see !' 



A COAL-MINER 

How dark it is ! This time the load is big 
And heavier. Somehow, it is so far 
Up to the places where the carloads are. 
All I can see is her face, as she sat 
Coughing and weakening, just for need of that 
Which I could only dig ! 

It was so cold that year, and damp, beside. 
Wages were low, and every day I'd pile 
The shining lumps in heaping baskets, while 
I knew she needed it. You would have thought 
I could have stolen some; but I was caught. 
She had a chill — and died. 



A NURSE 

I can remember quiet times, and those 
When you had tired yourself with riotous play ; 
Then we would sit, and while the passing day 
With fairy tales of lands beyond the sun. 
You loved me, then, completely — not as one 
Who does her work and goes. 

I saw you yesterday. Your hair is light; 

We thought it would be darker. Oh, why, why 

Did you not know me as I passed you by ? 

Have I grown old? You could not be too proud. 

You might have spoken, yes, or only bowed, 

Or — have you forgotten, quite ? 



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